Sometimes it's just not your day

Everything starts out well enough.  Yesterday's greyness gives way to blue skies over the mountains as the sun burns through early morning clouds.  I am on my way to a favorite trout stream that treated me very well last October.  My mood brightens along with the day.

Arriving at the stream, I find that the water levels are perfect. Temperatures are just right for wet wading and hiking without breaking a sweat.  This is going to be fun.

I fish an elk hair caddis with no action for a little while and then switch to a big stonefly nymph when I see empty shucks here and there on the rocks.  I had been hoping for some dry fly action but it doesn't really matter because I'm about to slay 'em with nymphs.

I make my way farther and farther upstream and can't buy a look.  I switch back to the dry.  No dice.  I try a different nymph.  Nothing.  I should be catching fish but I'm not.  I grow impatient.  In my haste to get to the next spot, I go too quickly and it happens.  My foot comes down on a slimy rock so slick it feels as if it's covered with ice.

I go ass over teakettle in the middle of the creek.  Laying on my back, wedged between two boulders, I utter some words that would not make my Mom proud of me. I have wacked my shin hard enough that it takes several minutes to stop hurting.  I stand up and start to collect myself and realize that something is very wrong with my reel. Then I look at it.

The frame is bent so badly on my prized English made Hardy reel that the spool cannot turn.  I utter a few more words that are the foulest I can think of, but which I feel are entirely appropriate for the occasion.  This does not make me feel any better.  I remove the spool and pull enough line off to be able to make a reasonable cast, replace the spool and continue upstream.  I still have caught no fish today.

I fish for another hour or so, but my heart is no longer in it.  I hit the trail and retreat down the mountain with no fish and a busted reel. 

Along the road back to the parking lot I pass the flower bed fisherman and think that I would have been better off down here with him. 

Sometimes it's just not your day.  But there's always tomorrow.